Oh, the Places You'll Go!

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...” 

At the end of each year, I read Dr. Seuss' "Oh the Places You'll Go" to my first graders. I love this quote because it resonates with some of the core values I hold to be true in my teaching: trust, value, and choice. 

As educators, we spend 9 months building trusting relationships with our students and families. We value every student and family's unique perspective, background and experience, ensuring their voices are heard and respected. Finally, we create opportunities for student choice, for authentic and engaging work.

Why, then, do we ignore so many of these best practices in educator professional development? I believe the pillars of effective professional learning should directly mirror those we strive to achieve in classrooms with students.

Trust 
When my students have a rough patch, behaviorally, I remind them that I am not their babysitter. If I spent my time monitoring their every move I'd have exactly zero time to teach. Because I teach almost exclusively in small groups throughout the day, my students spend about 1/2 of their day working independently, in partners or in small groups on specific tasks, away from me (while I'm teaching other students in small groups). It would be impossible for me to monitor what they're saying and doing every moment of their day - and I don't need to! Instead, I intentionally foster a community of trust and respect in my classroom. When given the expectations, structures, and supports even 6 year olds can be trusted to stay focused on the task at hand and to take responsibility for their learning.

Instead of trying to micro-manage, track and control every moment of educators' professional development, we should shift our emphasis to creating a culture of trust. If we create the opportunities and structures for educators to improve their practice, we must trust that they will, in fact, act as professionals and pursue their own development. Accountability can play a part, of course, but "seat time" alone should not be used as an indicator of professional learning. Instead, we need to look at other ways to track and evaluate educator PD through competency based learning opportunities and aligned accountability systems.

Value 
As educators, it is critical that we value and respect our students' unique experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives. In DPS, two indicators of our teacher evaluation framework are devoted to this very idea. By valuing and respecting each of our students we create a culture of equity and foster a motivational environment in our classrooms.

An important component of quality PD is the ability for educators to share and learn from one another's unique experiences and perspectives. In my work helping with the implementation of personalized learning in my building this year, I've been lucky enough to work closely with many veteran teachers at my school. I can't count the number of times I have overheard talented teachers emphasizing their own "stupidity" or lack of understanding, usually related to a specific new tech tool or style of teaching. Teachers are so accustomed to being told "You need to learn X, Y, Z" that we forget how much of "A-W" we bring to the table already! The sheer body of expertise that exists in each building is an immense resource, just waiting to be tapped.

Choice
My students learn best when given opportunities to choose their own path, process and drive their own learning. While I have a set of standards that each student will need to master by the end of the year, I strive to create opportunities for my students to practice and show mastery of these standards in a variety of ways. As my students grow more comfortable with the customizability of our classroom, the ideas for these paths often come from the students themselves. Naturally, I also have a handful of students who are working 1-2 grade levels above or below our first grade standards. I don't force these students to complete work that is far above or below their level, but instead allow them to work on tasks that are "just right" for them.

Allowing for this level of choice and flexibility in my classroom can make things more "messy" for me. I can't sit down and grade 25 multiple choice tests to determine a grade. However, the pros far outweigh the cons. By empowering my students, I am able to foster an environment in which students learn to take initiative, advocate for themselves, ask tough questions, and take ownership of their learning. By stepping to the side and allowing my students to take control, their creativity, passion and commitment can take them to new, previously impossible places.

Naturally, educators are more engaged in their professional development when it it stems from their own questions, ideas, and interests. While there will probably always be a certain (hopefully small) set of mandated, "top-down" required PD, the more we can create opportunities and structures for professionals to have choice in time, place, process and content... the better off we'll be. Educators naturally lean toward professional development that is authentic, applicable, and valuable for their own practice. Instead of attempting to anticipate each and every PD need in the district and mandate requirements that might fill those needs, we need to step aside and allow the professionals to work out their next steps and needs, then build our school and district support around those ideas.

This shift in PD is not simple, quick, or without complications. However, the challenge is well worth the effort. By sharing and working together, we can advocate for ourselves to ensure professional learning opportunities are authentic, applicable and beneficial to our work with the most important people in the world: our kids.

If you're interested in personalized professional development, please join the conversations in the edcamp Denver and Blendtastic Bombastic communities on Google+!

A Variety of Needs, a Variety of Learning: Ideas on Personalizing PD for EVERY Learner

I often describe myself as “detail-oriented” or “dependable”, and I think most people who know me would agree. So you can imagine how difficult it is for me to have missed the cutoff for this January blog post and be sharing my thoughts about the month’s theme, professional learning, in February. While I don’t like missing deadlines I am thankful that life’s chaos kept me from finalizing this post until after edcamp Denver on February 1st. The opportunity to help organize the event, hear the incredibly positive feedback that continues to pour in afterward, and to speak with educators from around the state (and from Washington D.C.!) has helped me to solidify some thoughts that have been rattling around in my mind for quite some time around the topic of PD. I would like to frame these thoughts as just the beginning, the start of not only my own processing of what PD could look like for educators but also the beginning of the conversation. I would be thrilled if readers would share their thoughts, questions, connections, or challenges to the ideas I’ve been pondering quite a bit over the last few months.

What if professional learning accounted for the needs of each learner, school, and district?

I’ve been lucky to experience PD from a lot of different perspectives. As a teacher I have worked in several districts and school buildings, participating in PD as a new teacher (both to the profession and to a building) and as a more experienced learner with a clearer idea of what I expected and hoped to gain from a professional learning experience. I have attended PD sessions with and listened to the feedback from teachers who represent lots of different backgrounds, experience levels, and areas of interest and it seems that no 2 teachers in the room ever have quite the same exact needs at the same time. This makes sense given how many different content areas, teaching styles, student populations, and individual learning preferences we represent, and it fits with the same phenomenon we have in our classrooms. All my students may need a concept like multiplication, but no 2 students need quite the same delivery method, pacing, or scaffolds when working on that concept. By giving teachers an opportunity to articulate where they are in their learning, what their needs are currently, and where they would like to go we can help craft PD that is relevant and meaningful to teachers. When you couple this self-driven approach with frequent conversations and check-ins with representatives from a team, school site, or even district leadership there becomes a balance between the needs of the larger organization and the needs of each teacher. The goal is not educators each doing their own thing all the time behind closed doors, the goal is to strike a balance among a lot of different needs and to engage in ongoing conversations at all levels so that in the end the learner, and the students in our classrooms, are benefiting from the time and money spent towards PD. 

What if PD was differentiated to meet everyone's needs and learning styles? 

I've recently had the chance to think about PD from the “other side” of the conversation, working with a team of colleagues and administrators to discuss the PD structures we have in place for a diverse and complex building of learners within a K-12 school, and more broadly thinking about the district level and how the needs of so many teachers can be met in meaningful, authentic ways. Being on the flip side of this process has opened my eyes to many of the strengths and challenges that currently exist in our traditional PD system, and has provided the opportunity to speak to an even greater demographic of staff within a district. (Have you ever given much consideration to what PD might look like for a paraprofessional, a building administrator, or a central office staff member and thought about how they might feel fulfilled and challenged in their jobs while also getting re-connected to the work of students and teachers at the classroom level? I hadn’t, but it has been pretty fun to imagine how this might look.)

I think one of the struggles that comes up constantly is the idea that we should use any one method or structure to deliver PD. While I firmly believe in using online communities of practice and love to have certain information delivered via a webinar or online learning management system, there are times when that doesn’t meet my needs. Sometimes I prefer to engage in a completely online learning experience, other times I like to meet face to face. I find immense value in self-directed learning but once in a while a bit more structure is what I need. Learning from someone with a lot of experience who is incredibly knowledgeable on a topic can be amazing, but other times I prefer to learn with someone who is just starting to delve into a topic alongside me. I tell my students to constantly consider their audience and purpose, and to make informed choices about their learning based on a lot of different factors (This is something that +Chris Moore does phenomenally with his 5th graders and that he shared with me in a PD several years ago. It has changed my entire perspective and has helped me push my students to truly know themselves and think about things far beyond the classroom walls or the rubric of an assignment.) As adults in any profession don’t we always consider the purpose, what we are trying to accomplish, and what tool or method will best meet those needs? Who we are as learners plays a huge part in that decision-making process and teachers should be able to make informed decisions about their professional learning based on their own knowledge of self.

How can we take advantage of different tools and delivery methods to make learning more authentic while ensuring proper scaffolds are in place?

I understand that for many of our learners an online or asynchronous delivery method can be cumbersome, overwhelming, or confusing. Should we say to them, “Ok no problem, just don’t ever use those things.”? No, I don’t personally think so. But we must consider what scaffolds they need and how we can alter those online experiences to be meaningful for them with small chunks to bite off at a time. Learning the tool while using the tool is something I value tremendously for students, and for adult learners as well, but that doesn’t mean throwing my kids into the deep end by giving them a website address and expecting them to navigate to the site, sign up for an account, learn the tool, and produce a final product that demonstrates all their content knowledge - especially if I haven’t taught them how to point and click yet. I take them through small steps towards the end goal, embrace the idea that I must "go slow to go fast", and check in often about where they're at so I can adjust the pacing and delivery as needed. I'm careful not to hold the large group back while waiting for every single student to be caught up with us, but I make sure to walk kids through clear steps and then make use of the "experts in the room" who can now teach their peers. Many of our colleagues need this same assistance and most buildings have any number of teachers who would be great resources. I believe it could be transformative for schools and districts to foster an environment where everyone can be open and honest about their strengths and challenges and where time to share and help each other is built in and valued on an ongoing basis. 

Conversely, there are a lot of teachers who are ready to jump in feet first with a Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) or find their way around an online community of practice with 10, 100, or even 1,000 members. Some teachers know exactly what they want and where to find it, so why not give them some time and space to learn, reflect, implement, reflect again, and so on? These teachers are not being served by putting so many limitations on their learning, and it is holding them back from becoming inspired, innovative teachers who can forge the way and share this amazing thinking with their students and colleagues. 

What if we crafted PD with the learner in mind, not the initiative or end goal? 

I’ve been fortunate to not just think about PD from the perspective of the learner, or consumer, but to also be a facilitator, a creator of PD, hoping to meet the needs of the people in any given session and to become a valuable resource for them before, during, and after a session. Whenever I think about how to structure PD or present to educators I first think of what I would want as the consumer. “How would I feel if…?” “Would I find value in this experience? Why, or why not?” I try to talk to session attendees and to colleagues who represent lots of backgrounds, experience levels, and learning styles because their feedback guides how I plan something the next time. After facilitating or participating in PD I enjoy reflecting on the experience and thinking about what worked and what didn’t, from the perspective of both the creator and the consumer. This feedback and reflection is invaluable in helping me to learn and grow myself, and to continue to refine PD for the learners and students we want to help. Very rarely, though, do I spend a lot of time pondering how best to teach a specific tool at a certain level to all participants. For me it is more about sharing, answering questions and being responsive to the needs in the room at that moment. Instead of measuring my effectiveness by asking, "How many teachers walked out of the room knowing exactly what to use Google Drive for or how to navigate TenMarks?" I usually ask myself, "How many teachers walked out with some new piece of information that is valuable to their practice? How many teachers connected with someone new who can now be a valuable resource for them? How many teachers left inspired or excited to get back to school to plan and implement something they learned today?" These are the questions I ask myself because those are the takeaways that have a lasting effect and a huge impact on teachers and their students.

Can PD be flexible and responsive to a teacher's changing needs within a school year?

As a consumer of PD I have occupied a lot of different mental spaces and had a huge variety of needs in any given school year. Some of these needs could have been anticipated ahead of time based on my own goals for my professional practice, where I felt my areas of strength and struggle were, or on my experience level in teaching. Many of my needs, however, cropped up unexpectedly and were dependent upon the students I had that year and the situations coming up in my classroom, both for me as the teacher and for my students. It is important to have goals, both from an organizational perspective and as the individual learner, but rigidity does not serve the responsiveness we must embrace in our classrooms and in our practice. One school year I was certain that my goal was unit planning and backwards design, and I prepped accordingly all summer long. The first day of school, and subsequent weeks and months with 30 highly impacted students and not enough furniture for them to sit in, showed me a different path. I needed to focus on new ways to approach behavior management and learn to balance the needs of K-7th grade levels in one classroom while still keeping my cool each day. If (when) someone tried to sit me in a PD about using a specific reading strategy or math tool I was frustrated because I felt mentally I was in no place to be focusing my limited time and energy on anything other than what my kids and I needed each day. It took me a long time to let go of the learning someone wanted me to participate in and to be ok with not investing in it 110% so that I could instead create the learning I needed to best serve my kiddos. I had to come to terms with and embrace the drastic difference between what I planned to learn and what I actually needed. I will always say it was the school year that just about killed me as a teacher and a human, but I definitely learned more than I could have imagined I would about the state of our education system, various teaching strategies, and most of all myself. I only wish PD was structured in a way that could have met my needs that year and would save teachers in this position from expending valuable energy and time on fighting the system and trying to make it work for them, and for their students.

What if we trusted teachers to, as +Ben Wilkoff puts it, "choose their own adventure"?

We trust teachers with 30-40 students every day. We ask them to foster classroom environments where students take risks, learn from the things that work and the things that need adjustment next time, and to help students become independent so they can make well-informed decisions. I find it somewhat dichotomous that we don't create the same kind of environments for most of our adult learners by creating a culture of trust and acknowledgement that these learners can guide their own journey far better than we can craft it for them. In my 4th grade classroom I lay out the standards we are expected to cover in a year, and I put the ownership of the learning in the hands of my 9 and 10 year old students. I provide constant opportunities for them to learn who they are, what their learning style is, and how to make informed decisions and choices based on the task or purpose at hand. In doing so I believe they are learning so much more in the course of a unit or a year than I could ever create for each of them myself. They are also fully invested in nearly every learning experience they jump into because they see where they came from and where they are headed, they understand the relevance and value the learning holds in the larger scheme of their education and their life. Imagine the possibilities for our education system with a similar take on the profession and adult learning...

How much more impact would learning have on a teacher's practice and on the students in their classrooms if reflection time were valued and provided in the schedule often?

Teachers need built in time to connect to the new learning they acquire, and to reconnect to themselves as the learner so they can continue to monitor their progress and set goals for future learning. The most brilliant knowledge in the world can be easily lost if learners aren’t given the time to process all the amazing things they just started to soak in and to build that new information into their practice. Often times PD feels like a cram session where as much information as possible on a topic is thrown at attendees from the time they walk in the door until the time they walk out. If a learner wants to reflect, spend time processing, and apply the learning to their practice they usually have to do so on their own time, but isn't the reflection and application of this new knowledge really where the biggest classroom impact begins? What if for every -x number of hours spent in PD there was a dedicated -y number of hours to reflect, share that learning back with colleagues, and continue the conversations during implementation? 

How can you shift towards a more personalized approach to PD in your own practice, your school, or your district?

As I said earlier this is just where some of my thoughts begin on a very large, but imperative, conversation on personalizing professional learning. What thoughts or reactions do you have on the topic? How does your school or district structure PD? Does it work, does it need to be altered? What does your dream PD look like for yourself and your colleagues? Share a comment, blog post or vlog of your own, or jump onto Twitter, G+, Tumblr, (insert social media of your choosing...). You can also come join the conversation within a fairly new and totally awesome Google+ Community: Blend-tastic Bombastic Personalized PD. I really do believe that as educators our voices are powerful and that together we can re-shape the system so it works for ALL learners, both the students in our classrooms and the staff in our buildings.

A Mashup of January Wonderings

Change Management: A Realization

I had a realization of late that may already be second nature to many of you.

It sounds something like this: 

"If I were to implement blended learning properly in the classroom, then I need to start from scratch and throw out my preconceived paradigm of school."

By products of this if/then statement include:  

-The teacher is not the holder of all knowledge nor should they make all the decisions.  

- Good students are not just those who blindly follow directions without complaint. 

- A classroom can look chaotic, but students are still learning. 

- Critical thinking skills are much harder to teach than route memorization. 

 My realization made me think about the current state of my class and assess it critically. When I created a Google form and used it as a worksheet, I am basically substituting one thing for another. Time to create the form equals time I used to use to correct papers. Equal amount of time (roughly) that was shifted from after the work was done to before the students started the task. The medium was also different, but the questions and level of rigor stayed the same. 

 Baby steps I justified in my head. 

 When students use Google Presentations to create an endangered animal project, we substituted presentations for Powerpoint. Again, same list of endangered animals (plus or minus a few), note taking graphic organizer, just slightly different software.  

 Baby steps. 

 Recently the SAMR model resurfaced on my Google Plus feed. In the past, I had only heard it used in reference to iPads, but I'm slowly coming to the realization that it's can be applied to most technology usage. +Laura Mitchell  explained it well in her last post here on the edible elephant. I have lots of questions about the SAMR model. 

 - When do teachers know it's time to move up the pyramid (ex. go from Substitution to Augmentation)? 

- Do you need to show a certain level of proficiency at one level before moving to the next or can you just jump to where ever you want to be? Is that even possible? 

- Are the different levels in a chronological order where you must go from Substitution to Augmentation before you ever have hope of Modification? Is it possible for me to leapfrog from Substitution to Modification? 

- Must we always aim for the Redefinition level or can we have some activities at each level? 

Someone once told me that if I tell other people my intentions, the universe hears me and responds, so I'm hoping you can share with me some of your thoughts on this and other matters. :)

Thinking Beyond Year 1

I have always found it fascinating to read about other people's lives and progress towards goals. Autobiographies intrigue me, and I like asking colleagues and mentors, "How did you get to where you are now? Please share with me what you did". No two paths have every been the same. Reading or hearing about their ups and downs is like being given a cheat sheet of what to expect. The downside to that is that it also has me worrying about things that I can't do anything about, yet I know are coming up.  

Recently, I stumbled upon a comment that +Alex Magaña  made regarding long term planning. He is the innovative principal over at Grant Becon Middle School and has been gracious and generous in sharing his knowledge of blended learning. This comment was made over two months ago, so I am late, yet again, to the party. However, it was very timely to me because my school has started some long term planning of our own. 

 “Much like any start up, the excitement can carry you the first year but now I want to work with my team in planning out the next 3 years.”

 Reading Alex's comment made me pause in all that’s happening and wonder. The excitement from year one has tide us through some of the lower points. Where are we going to get our energy from for year 2 and on? How do we sustain that energy and excitement? How do we remain fully committed to blended learning if/when a better packaged "latest and greatest" idea appears front of us? 

Professional Learning Communities (Update)

We had our first official technology PD lead by teachers two weeks ago. As a presenter, it was nerve wracking. The room was packed (adults sitting at desks for fourth graders- I thought of you +Jessica Raleigh  and your kiddos on your classroom floor), loud, slightly chaotic, and we had technical difficulties. Google permissions and I are acquainted but not quite friends. Did we bite off more than we can chew?   

But….. it was loud because people were talking on topic. It was chaotic because teachers were moving around and helping each other with the technical difficulties. Most importantly, all the teachers were engaged, and all the teachers stayed on task with their conversations. Several of them made comments on the pretty flower background on the Google Form, but they humored me by filling out the technology survey and wish list. 

We have data now!! *dances jig around the room*

 More importantly, people told me afterwards that they actually found the format useful. They got something useful for themselves and left with ideas on how to use something like this in the classroom. Other teachers shared privately their desire to use more technology, but they were fearful because they will be starting from the beginning. What they needed was a lot more help than everyone else. I count this as a small victory. How do we keep building this momentum and deliver on the promise of personalized learning for teachers? Some ideas have started formulating, but we want more input. 

 Luckily for us, we're meeting with +Kevin Croghan  next week.  Just in time for us to plan our second PD. :D

Turn and Talk on Steroids

The best professional learning I do is often in the classroom next door. It’s the pop in when I have a quick question, the sharing of ideas with a person who is pursuing the same goal as you, or the conversation that has you so side tracked you are late to pick up your class.  With a group of my peers who come with a variety of expertise and an equally pressing need to master the material. I so often find my learning is deeper and more applicable from a two sided conversation than a one sided presentation. 

Yet, that is often not the model of professional learning that is used.  I understand all to well why group professional learning needs to happen, it is cost effective and helps support a consistent message and those are all strengths that need to be recognized.

Thou I believe recently we have generated a new kind of professional learning model that takes the best of the previous two models and blends them together.  What I am talking about is interactive professional learning.  This is something we have been using in our classrooms and are now finally using for adult learning too.  “Turn and talk” on steroids.    There are many elements that make this model work best for me.  The first is the presentation material is not more than 10-15 minutes.  Then the rest of the time is spent in conversation working on whatever task is at hand. An additional piece to this puzzle has been the introduction of technology.  Things like Google docs allow for the conversation to continue long after the meeting has ended, and made note taking so much simpler.  I plan to use this model in any professional learning I plan in the future!

Adult Learning Doesn't Have to Hurt Like a Pencil in Your Eye

The image below started circling around my end of the internets a few weeks ago.   It depicts a pencil as a metaphor for the people we find in our workplace.  I saw this and immediately latched onto it.  I thought, "right on, I see all these people in my work."  Immediately, I was able to start putting people into the categories outlined in the graphic.  I was thinking, "so-and-so is totally an 'eraser', and whosey-dinkle is absolutely a 'hanger-on.'"  Then, quite suddenly, I stopped. I was ashamed.  

from: http://rhul-lt.blogspot.com/2012/01/e-learning-and-pencil-metaphor.html

I felt guilty because I realized that I was passing judgement on the people in my life, all of whom have their reasons for landing in one place or another in their learning.  I also realized that, given the context and in any given point in my learning, I too have fallen into different categories outlined by the metaphor. Moreover, I had my rationales for doing so. What I started to internalize was the danger in having such a metaphor to describe the learning continuum.  It elevates individuals and attaches criticism to others, but most of all, it takes the humanity out of the process of learning and undermines the community that exists in our teaching profession.  

Of course, no metaphor is perfect.  Sometimes, they fail to fully illustrate all of the things that could be happening and all the contributing factors that may explain any given scenario.  For example, this pencil metaphor is really just a snapshot of a pencil at one point in time, but we know that pencils do not stay in the same form throughout their existence.  I would like to expand on this alternate interpretation of the metaphor, as it highlights what I see as the real issue here.  For me, it's a metaphor about labels, and maybe it could be more a model about identifying problems.   

The truth is that erasers get smaller and worn, ferrules get damaged, the wood is diminished, and the lead is inevitably dulled.  Some pencils never achieve their purpose, because they get broken and discarded.  Perhaps those are real analogies for what happens to the groups represented by each section of the pencil metaphor, or perhaps not.  Maybe the diminishing nature of the pencil is a problem in and of itself.  

I'm sure there are those who feel they are the ones being shoved into the blades of the pencil sharpener (another metaphor just waiting to happen).  Surely there are "sharp" folks and leaders that get ground down and cast off as part of the cost of production.   At the same time, the erasers are getting rubbed away as mistakes are undone.   So, this reduction in the mass (knowing that I am speaking quantity of people, not mass) of the pencil is reminiscent of the overwhelming problems in teacher retention.  

Perhaps I'm just straining the analogy, but one can never reconstruct the pencil, so the result is obtaining a new one.  Thus, the process starts again.  How is the cycle broken? To answer, I must depart from the metaphor for a moment to say that through trust and connecting educators with the best choice professional development to meet their needs, perhaps metaphors like this will only exist in memory.  
  
You see, an inherent flaw with the metaphor is that one cannot train a pencil.  Pencils do not have free will or the ability to make choices.  It's only a tool that is moved by some unseen hand in this picture.  No teacher would say that they are just being manipulated from the all knowing holder of the pencil and the marks we leave are just the will of the invisible hand.  Yet, there are inescapable initiatives and currents in education that guide our path as the hand does guide the pencil.   But these influences are neither here nor there, they just are.   Sometimes these influences are exactly what keeps people in the categories illustrated.  Sometimes we take the lead and charge into the solving of a problem, and sometimes we shelter in place.  Perhaps part of the the solution lies in addressing how we help educators maximize their potential.  

So, the key here is to call out what is human in this story presented by the inanimate pencil. Pencils have no free will - yet we do. The fluidity missing in the pencil metaphor is enabled through the providing of opportunities for choice, and trusting in teachers that will allow them to take risks. It's also about how we meet the needs of teachers and how we identify those needs.  Most of all, it is about the community that supports teachers.

Kelly Tenkely takes a similar perspective in her blog, Dreams of Education, where she argues that "we need a new era of professional development," suggesting school-wide PD be about building culture.  She asserts that "we aren't dealing with widgets.  We are in the business of people, and growth, and life."  She connects strong cultures with allowing space to honor individuality. You see, we are not pencils (or pencil parts).  Pencils don't have culture, nor do they acknowledge the uniqueness of each other.  Maybe the key is to focus on community and cherishing what each person can contribute. Based on our skills and interests, anyone can be the lead depending on what he or she is leading and how it aligns to that person's skills and interests.

  

So, what do I take from the pencil metaphor?  The reality for me is that the it is just a snapshot, and it doesn't reflect the true fluidity of adult learning, behavior and motivation (points to which Jessica Raleigh spoke so well in her blog).  It is really more of a model, and models are supposed to be used and adapted as problems are identified.  In this case, the model does sponsor some debate (and has allowed me to wax philosophic for a time) as to how to handle the problem, which may be its only purpose.

What I am leaving with here is that humans and professional learning are never static, and there is a danger in applying models like the pencil metaphor as unchanging truths.  Human nature is a funny thing, and while I may initially cling to a paradigm to start my thinking, as I dig deeper, I generally find that the snapshots never really deliver the full story.  More so, the real danger is the dismissive nature of placing labels on a person.  It generally places all of the responsibility for failure to adopt new methods on individuals and fails to force us to be accountable to each other in the ways we support our colleagues.  Most of all, I fear it generates a divisiveness that can sabotage the community it takes to be truly successful in educating children.

The More Things Change . . .

So, this is my first post for the Eating the Elephant Blog (EtEB), and I gotta say, it has been hard for me to get started.  I can't say for sure why, but I think I have had a bit of anxiety about finally dropping content into a world that already has so many great writers.  That said, I am a firm believer that I am supposed to be contributing back to the community and not just consuming information.  I hope you find my musings useful, or at least tolerable.

Our theme for the month of December (sorry, I'm a little late) was around what's different and what's the same.  For me to address all of the changes (and all of the sameness for that matter) that have happened would be impossible to do and impossible to read.  I will instead hit on highlights of change that I have seen from my perspective. To that end, I feel it is important to note that this being my first post, and my natural tendency to be verbose, will result in a substantially longer entry that what I anticipate happening in the future.  Please also note, while this post is mainly about change in 2013, it will contain a good deal of background information drawing from the past three years.

Preface:

This has been a year of monumental change for me.  About a year ago, I was in the middle of winter break, planning for what to do with my 8th grade Social Studies class upon returning to school in January.  I was also prepping some of the professional development that I would be facilitating on our first day back which was a non-student contact day, and I popped by my school to run some copies for my data team.  I also remember that I picked up a new pair of high-end running shoes on New Year's Day.  Things were going to be different.

Well, in fact everything has changed.  In the summer, I took on a position working in my district Office for School Reform and Innovation as a Personalized Learning Field Manager.   Sure, there are a lot of ten-cent words in that sentence, but the reality is that I agreed to become a member of the district-level administration team.  I was no longer going to be teaching kiddos, and I was going to have to leave my awesome room, my awesome school and all of my awesome teaching partners.

So, why leave the room? Right!?

Background:

You see, for years I had been working with Blended Learning, and many of these years I did not even know it.  It wasn't until about three years ago, when I met guys like Glenn Moses and Michael Wacker that I realized there was even a name for the type of instruction I was doing.   I just thought I was working smarter and giving kiddos more opportunities to practice their learning by putting it on a website and giving them online assessments for immediate feedback.   Once I realized that there was this "Blended Learning" movement in schools, I had to learn more and I had to start sharing what I was learning.  I started creating my own PLNs around Blending by finding people online and at conferences and adding them to my twitter lists (and later, G+).  I wanted to know as many experts as I could to help me hone my craft.  I also realized that I could no longer keep taking information without giving back to the community that was helping me, so I started facilitating more professional development for my district and for other districts, I stepped up into more leadership roles at my school, and I applied to become a part-time Instructional Coach for my peers.

Flash forward to June of 2012, at my school, under the leadership of Alex Magana, we had made the decision to become a Blended Learning School.  I'll hand it to Alex, he is great at finding money for special projects, attracting talented people to work with him, and he is above all, a dreamer of what could be.  He saw the potential in the Blended Learning methodology, and he was subsequently able to get our school rolling down the path of Personalization.  Alex, and the school leadership team, took all the right steps to make it happen.  They gained support from stakeholders, planned, visioned, and did a litany of other work just to do a launch of school-wide Blended Learning in September 2012.

Implementation wasn't perfect, but it was as painless as possible.  Know that all the trials and tribulations that came are a whole other story, but I can break down the items that made the process successful into eight key areas of implementation:

1. Common Vision for the school
2. Needs Assessment for infrastructure
3. Needs Assessment for talent and PD (this is both knowledge and the time)
4. Common tools in both hardware and Learning Management System (LMS)
5. Goal Setting around the vision
6. Creating a climate conducive to taking risks
7. Testing models
8. Evaluating and iterating on learning

By June of 2013, we had the entire school working with BL, we had correlating data to support that it was working with student engagement and student success, we had a staff that was all speaking the same language, and we were collectively planning for year two of implementation.

I loved it at my school, and I was totally happy, but I also saw an opportunity to enact change at a greater level.  To put it simply, I feel that I have an obligation to serve the greater community in the best way that I can.  For years it had been through teaching the 150+ students in my classroom each year, but an opportunity came for me to serve on a much larger scale.  I felt my skill set was best suited to support as an advocate for teachers and students at the district level.  So, when the opportunity came in the form of a job posting in July 2013 for a Personalized Learning Filed Manager (PLFM), I decided to apply.

What's Changed:

I'm kind of a list guy, and I've decided that's okay.  For me, the things that have changed the most for me are around learning and connecting.  For the ease of the reader, I have outlined my thoughts by heading below.

I) My New Learning:

Upon taking the job as a PLFM, I was able to work more closely with my colleagues Christina Jean & Ben Wilkoff.  I've worked with them for a while, but they were suddenly in my world daily.  These two individuals have done more to push my thoughts about Blending and Personalization than I could have expected.  In fact, if I was going to point to the most significant changes for me, I would have to say it is that I am, for lack of a better way of saying it, smarter.  It seems funny, I know, but I was speaking with my wife just the other day, and she reminded me that I made a comment to that effect only a few weeks ago.  I had mentioned that in my new position I have been essentially forced to have rationales, to do more research, to find more resources, to make new connections and above all, to teach and collaborate with adults that are learners of a new methodology.

Christina has done a great deal in helping me to craft personal goals, to navigate district networks, formalize a process for school visioning around personalization and above all to understand what personalization really is.  Last March, Christina helped me initially put to paper the process that I went through to plan for BL by helping me create a BL Litmus test.  This is more of a legacy document around my thinking, and it is by no means prescriptive.   It is in constant iteration, and I look at it as a series of questions that I can ask myself in planning.  Beyond this, Christina also introduced me to the iZone Framework from New York.  It is a delicious way of looking at Personalization through its guiding questions and principles to create student centric schools.  Moreover, my work with Christina made me realize that Blended Learning becomes even more powerful when used in concert with more personalized methods of content delivery and demonstration of content proficiency.

As for Ben, this dude is on a whole different plane.  He is a fountain of knowledge around all things web-based.  It is not uncommon in any given day that a problem will come to a point where someone says, "let's see what Ben thinks."   He is the doyen of the internet in my district, but for me, his real value is in the way he approaches adult learning.  He is constantly trying to find ways to match professional development to people strengths, needs and interests.  From virtually to face-to-face instruction, he probably has something going one to meet the needs of adults.  Even more than that, his advocacy for teacher empowerment is inspiring.  Through his tutelage and constant support I was able to start my G+ community for Personalized Professional Development and he has helped me craft a number of other ways to connect with my lab sites.  We've even started work on applying competency based badges to PD.   I will be speaking more to these things in next month's blog post, so stay tuned.

II) My New Perspectives:

My perspectives on how we approach education have started to change.  I feel that my new insights are really better suited for a later post, so I will not dwell there right now.  Let's just say, as my role has changed so has my identity.  

III) My New Projects and New Collaborators:

Yogi Berra said something like, "you can see a lot just by looking."  I've heard it other ways, but the point is that if you just watch, you might learn something.  Observing a model is such a great way to learn how the pieces get put together.  As a teacher, I always wanted to go to others classes, and that was always an option if I wanted to cruise over to a room in my school.  My principal would even pay for guest teachers if I had a clear plan as to where I wanted to go and what my objectives were, but as many teachers know, taking a day out of the room is never as easy as just calling in.  It usually just feels gross being out of class, and let's not forget the prepping of the room and having to do all the sub planning.  Needless to say, I didn't get out of my room that much, and I was cool with that given the place I was in my career.

In my new role, I was suddenly exposed to so many new brilliant people within my district.  One of the best parts of my new role is that I get to see a lot of teachers doing what they do, and that has led to me expanding my PLC to in include so many new perspectives.  Subsequently, it has also led me to start working on several new projects.  Most of the projects revolve around adult learning, like the "Blend-tastic Bombastic Personalized PD" sessions I have been building in collaboration with our district EdTech team and the Edcamp Denver event I have been working on in my off hours.  The one that is consuming my thoughts right now is this blog.

The blog's main purpose is on our "About Us" page, and it's really about documenting, sharing and growing in collaboration with others.  We also have a list of themes to which we will be talking each month, and those can be found on our "Monthly Themes" page.  While I am anxiously anticipating writing to our goals and themes, I am truly excited by the opportunity of working with my new collaborators.

Anna, Elizabeth, Jessica and Laura are all top notch teachers with very different perspectives on what's happening in classrooms.  The roles they play in the implementation of Blending at their schools, even how their schools have chosen to implement, are all so varied that each provides a unique insight as to what it means to make such a big shift from traditional to more personalized methods of instruction.  These shifts are monumental, that is why we chose to go with the blog title, "Eating the Elephant."

Epilogue:

To eat an elephant, one has to do it one bite at a time.  It can be done, but there are all those little pieces that must be addressed.  These are the pieces that are so often lost to the larger narrative of actually completing the task.  If this process of implementing personalized methods works, or not, the small parts would likely be generally obscured by the larger picture.  That is why I am excited to see this blog as a space where educators that have attempted such work can craft a more complete narrative of what happened, what worked and (what's more often excluded) what didn't work.   Whether what they choose to share in the blog serves as celebrations, epiphanies or cautionary tales is up to each individually, yet the common goal will always be sharing in a way that is only made possible by the magic of a blog in the interwebs.  This sharing will hopefully sponsor comments and conversations to help iterate on the process and make better, or easier, the planning for these same shifts in other schools.

Technology in an Ever Changing Classroom

 As a teacher I am still working and growing toward technology not being a replacement for the learning tools of the past but being truly an innovative tool and a natural complement to today's instruction.  I believe that this the major difference in when I started my teaching career and now.  Students are no longer producing projects simply for the teacher to give them a grade but rather for a global audience.  Their worlds will never just be their  own neighborhoods but rather a global community so the same should be true about the classroom.

A few ways I have tried to use technology in the classroom                      with iMovie  

iMovie is now free (on all devices activated after September 1st)  and I have used it in several different capacities.  One way is to have students digitally record a statement at the end of a unit to display what we have learned.  (Favorite Family memories at the end of a social studies unit on every family being special.)

Another use of this technology in the classroom is establishing a digital pen pal relationship with a 3rd grade class in Westminster, CO where the students have shared about their schools and themselves.  The video we sent to them was entirely filmed and written by the kindergarten students. 

A Final way we have used iMovie is to share our learning with a larger community.  We have done videos both whole group and in small group.  From the introduction of a rubric to a reading group book about old and new things, the students love to see themselves on the screen acting as the teacher!

There are many other apps out there that can do similar things.  The way I approach it is I think of what I want to innovate in my teaching and then I go and find an app that will do what I am looking for!  A website I often used when I was just starting out to build my knowledge of apps is http://www.tcea.org/ipad.  They have over 1000 apps labeled by category and price! And they are all directly linked to the app store. Which helps cut down on search time!